UK actress Kristin Scott Thomas has optioned film rights to Original Bliss, A L Kennedy's acclaimed book about the complexities of sex or the lack of it.

Eclipse Management, the production and management company recently launched by former William Morris Agency executives Charles Finch and Luc Roeg, confirmed the move, made through the actress' Paris-based production outfit Kristin Scott Thomas Productions.

Although Eclipse, which represents the actress in the UK, aims to produce some features with its clients, the USA Films and Canal Plus-backed company said that there were no plans for it to collaborate on the project.

Bliss is the darkly comic tale of a Glaswegian woman who spends her time watching late-night educational TV to distract herself from empty nights - and the sinister, violent attentions of her husband. On TV she sees a cybernetics professor talking about masturbation and personal improvement, so she travels to Stuttgart to waylay him at a conference.

Bliss is the second novel by Kennedy to be recently optioned by London literary agency Gillon Aitken Associates after So I Am Glad. Elton John and David Furnish's UK-based film production company Rocket Pictures has partnered with US actors Ed Harris and Amy Madigan for an adaptation of the book, about two unconventional people romantically intertwined.

Kennedy, hailed as part of the Scottish new writing wave along with the likes of Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner, has also written books including Everything You Need and Now That You're Back.